Manifest

By Reginald Shepherd 1963–2008 Reginald Shepherd

Sir star, Herr Lenz, white season body

master snapping masts in half, absent

winds’ workmanship: what window

will I look you through, what brook, stream

creaking past fretwork weeds, clouds

in the context of cold? Lord knot

to be untied, skiff hard alee ill winds:

a hiss of wish and cinders and I

am warm, crossing dazed oceans by hand

to sow the doubtful sea with drought. Mine

of rain and seize and sluice, you change

your mind again, a rage for green waves’

open vowels, undrinkable. No talking

to the weeds, no talking with the snow.

Reginald Shepherd, “Manifest” from Otherhood. Copyright © 2003. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, www.pitt.edu/~press/. Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.

Source: Otherhood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003)

Biography

Poet and editor Reginald Shepherd was born in New York City in 1963 and grew up in the Bronx. He earned a BA from Bennington College and studied at Brown University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His first collection, Some Are Drowning (1994), won the Associated Writing Program’s Award in Poetry; his fourth, Otherhood (2003), was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; and his last book, Fata Morgana (2007), won a . . .

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